Northern Hawk Owl

After our move from Toronto to Calgary, we encountered a prolonged stretch of brutal luck. Aside from a brief coyote sighting and a nice afternoon viewing of a short-eared owl, we saw nothing from early October 2016 until late January 2017. Thanks to the owl-spotting skills of friend Kerri Martin, the long stretch of futility ended with a first for us: A northern hawk-owl. Though the owls aren’t that uncommon, they’re also not that frequently photographed and rarely are they seen at eye level. But an encounter shared only by the three of us meant the owl wasn’t harassed and that gave us a prolonged period to watch it hunt before it was eventually driven away from the meadow by a raven.